Being Martha Stewart

You know those days where you wake up, throw up the sash. breathe in that fresh winter air, and decide that today is the day you will be your own new-and-improved Martha Stewart?

...neither do I.

I do, however, know what it's like to be woken up by two very noisy little kids jumping on your bed [read: bellyflopping onto you], in an absolutely frigid room and then being dragged by necessity and said children into a shoddy imitation of Marth Stewart.

Yesterday was one of those days.

The day started off bright and all too early...again, not because I wanted it to, but because I had to hurry and get a new license and do five loads of laundry. No, I'm not joking. That was actually only 2/3 of the laundry, the other 1/3 I have to do tomorrow. It's abso-friggin'-lutely cold and icy here, so everyone was basically stuck at home as temperatures dropped by noon. Instead of being all bummed about staying indoors all day (doing aforementioned laundry, no less), I decided to let Ezra convince me to make popcorn. Real popcorn too, in an actual popper, not any of the pansy microwave kind. I don't usually do it because it's a bit of a hassle and I'm kind of lazy by nature. However, Ezra must've timed it just right because I needed a bit of a laundry break and I knew if the Little Ones had popcorn and a movie, I could sneak in a some one-on-one with a book.

[cue the Martha Stewart]

While making popcorn, I turned into a bit of an Earth Mother and dealt with all questions and mishaps in a gentle, patient, go-with-the-flow manner.

Example:

*The breaker tripped when I tried to melt butter and pop popcorn at the same time. Ezra immediately started screaming, "The power is gone! The power is gone!" Georgia, who adores chaos in any form started squealing and wiggling in delight. I just went and flipped the switched back on.

Earth Mother? check.

*The butter kept popping in the microwave, making a ginormous, oily mess and wasting gobs of butter. It did it two separate times, in fact (I wised up and even covered it the second time and it STILL popped all over. grrr.). The kiddos, of course assuming the worst, thought things were exploding. I just cleaned it up. Both times. (you'd be proud of me mom. I was tempted to leave it for another day. no one ever looks in your microwave, anyway, right?)

go-with-the-flow? check.

*After a while, Ezra insisted he did not like the wet, soggy popcorn found at the bottom of his bowl. He then threw it on the floor and tried to grind it in. (I, personally, don't know what he was whining about. What kind of weirdo doesn't like the popcorn that is saturated with buttery goodness?) I insisted he pick it up and throw it away if he didn't want it. He refused. I said he couldn't have anymore popcorn if he didn't. The sparring went on for quite a while. (I think I ended up just picking it up myself when he wasn't looking so that he wouldn't realize I was giving in)

gentle and patient? wellll, maybe not check exactly, but at least I didn't wring his scrawny little neck.

All in all, it was quite a fun way to spend an afternoon and kept me in a good enough mood to even make homemade chicken noodle soup. So, while I might not quite be Martha Stewart ('cause we all know Martha wouldn't make popcorn only for a book break, she'd do it to instill her children with a sense of self-worth by spending lots of quality time with them), I think I'm doing pretty darn good anyway.

Ezra enjoying the fruits of his labor

Georgia looking mowgli, as usual.

(she's wearing pajamas in the middle of a weekday afternoon because she had soaked through her previous outfit and I simply didn't see the point in wasting another outfit on a stay-at-home day)